Two arrested for making lewd calls to police's women's helpline

“You have such a sweet voice,” “will you marry me” are comments that most women love to hear. However, for the women manning the Mumbai police’s women’s helpline, these remarks had become a problem, as they had to deal with such calls on a daily basis.

Not such a smooth operator: The arrested duo, Shambu Subhash Paswan (left) and Sagar Sutare (right) would often call the helpline at night and pass lewd comments at the officials manning the calls.

After being inundated with these lewd calls, the authorities filed a complaint against nine people and yesterday the Azad Maidan authorities arrested two, a taxi driver and two mentally handicapped men for making lewd calls.

The two were later identified as Shambu Subhash Paswan (19) and Sagar Sutare (20). The duo was booked under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code.

According to the authorities, Paswan would feel lonely at night and call the helpline on 100 and 103 and would ask to talk to the women staff manning the lines.

During investigations, Paswan admitted he would miss his wife and would then call the control room. “The staff posted at the control room is meant to help people but due to such calls, the lines would be busy and so, we decided to register an offence against them,” said an official from the control room.

“We traced nine numbers that would call the helpline number, out of which two turned out to belong to mentally unstable men, so we left them. Two others have been arrested and we are searching for five others,” said Manohar Karande, sub-inspector of Azad Maidan police station.